TV Tie-ins: Wings

Wings by Barry Thomas. Pan/BBC 0-330-25043 / 0-563-17169-3, 1977, 174pp, 50p. Cover: still [Tim Woodward].

"Once again, the Albatross dived after the BE2, its machine guns stuttering."
__1915, The Western Front. For young Alan Farmer a dream had come true—his first mission over enemy lines...
__His apprenticeship as a blacksmith; the horrifying death of his father; re-building The Flyer during the long Sussex evenings; Charles Gaylion's friendship; Captain Triggers and the training squadron; even Lorna's love—all had led up to this moment.
__Suddenly, bullets smashed the windscreen of Alan's cockpit...

Wings: Over Enemy Lines by Barry Thomas. BBC 0-563-17427-7, 1978, 223pp, 75p, Cover: still [Nicholas Jones]

Pilots and observers of the Royal Flying Corps did not survive for long in their stick-and-string biplanes on the Western Front in 1915. Alan Farmer, sergeant pilot and former blacksmith, had been with his squadron in France, where he met up with his old friend Charles Gaylion, only a few days when his CO was killed. The new CO was Captain Triggers, their old flying instructor. But then the squadron came up against the Germans' new monoplane, which actually had a machine gun firing forward through the propeller. Alan is wounded and sent home on leave. After his return he is accused by his observer of cowardice and faces a court martial.

BBC Television (1977-78). Series created by: Barry Thomas; Producer: Peter Cregeen;  Writers: Barry Thomas, Arden Winch, Julian Bond; Directors: Donald McWhinnie, Jim Goddard, Gareth Davies, Desmond Davies; Starring: Tim Woodward (Alan Farmer), Anne Kristen (Molly Farmer), John Hallam (Harry Farmer), Sarah Porter (Lorna Collins), Reg Lye (Tom Chater), Michael Cochrane (Charles Gaylion), Nicholas Jones (Captain Triggers). IMDB.

About the author [1977]

Barry Thomas has been writing for television for twenty years and was Script Editor for the very successful series, The Onedin Line. He once adapted Gogol's The Government Inspector for comedian Tony Hancock, collaborated with Francis Durbridge on the marathon eighteen-part thriller, The World of Tim Frazer, adapted How Green Was My Valley for live transmission from the Cardiff studio, and has been Script Editor and writer for Dr Finlay's Casebook and Z Cars. In spite of a fair bit of experience he is still naive enough to marvel at the work of directors and actors who do the real job of getting the shows on the screen.
__He is the creator of the television series, Wings. He was a navigator in the RAF, and for a short time—not short enough!—he was a parachute jumping instructor. This gave him a taste for insecurity and so he became a writer. Born in Barry, Glamorganshire, he now lives in Walton-on-Thames with his wife, Connie, and their five children, and has no time for hobbies.

Thomas was later script editor on The District Nurse and Story Editor on EastEnders. As far as I'm aware, these are the only two novels he is credited with.

TV Tie-ins: Alternative 3

Alternative 3 by Leslie Watkins. Sphere 0-7221-1127-4, 1978, 239pp.
----, 2nd imp., 1979; 3rd imp., 1980.

Anglia TV (1977; 1 x 52m). Devised by: David Ambrose & Christopher Miles; Executive Producer: John Woolf; Producer: John Rosenberg; Associate Producer: Robert Bell; Director: Christopher Miles; Screenplay: David Ambrose; Starring: Tom Brinton (himself), Gregory Munroe (Colin Benson), Carol Hazell (Katherine White), Shane Rimmer (Bob Grodin), Richard Marner (Dr. Carl Gerstein), David Baxt (Harry). IMDB.

The frighteningly erratic behaviour of the climate over the past few years... Unidentified Flying Object activity at an all-time peak... the continuing pollution and despoliation of planet Earth by overpopulation and industry... the mounting incidence of unexplained disappearances of people in mysterious circumstances... horrendous new killing techniques—including spontaneous combustion—used by government assassins against those who pose a threat to the security of an ultra-secret organization... terrifying advances in mind-control by agencies like the CIA and their use in creating a class of mindless human-robot slaves... astounding revelations of clandestine collaboration in space between the USA and the USSR over a period of decades... bizarre features observed on the Moon and Mars—but for some reason barely mentioned by the media...
__These and many other sinister features unearthed and examined by those investigating the horrific enigma of Alternative 3 are the strands in a web of conspiracy which could only exist in our age of terminal technology. Top journalist Leslie Watkins, making use of the research for the original TV exposé—much of which was not incorporated into the programme itself for various reasons - and of material that has come to light subsequently, has written a book with the grip, pace and compulsion of a thriller. And with the grim bite of terrible truth—a truth which is sure to be denied by those who are themselves terrified that the most explosive secret in human history is about to blow up in their faces...

An imaginative mockumentary which purported to be a shock exposé of a covert multinational space programme colonising Mars with the families of leading scientists and political figures because a secret UN report had determined that a runaway greenhouse effect would soon render the Earth uninhabitable. Although it was broadcast in June, the whole show was an elaborate prank originally intended to be broadcast on April Fool’s day and explicitly dated April 1. Stock footage and cod verité camerawork were neatly combined with Tim Brinton's breathless reporting, although some of the 'interviewees' were just a little too polished to be wholly convincing. ITV stations were flooded with phonecalls in the aftermath of the show and it remains a favourite with a handful of die-hard conspiracy theorists who still comb second hand bookshops for the 'novelisation' which invented even more detail.

Leslie Watkins (1930- ) has since commented that the book "is based on fact, but uses that fact as a launchpad for a high dive into fiction... I initially took the view that the basic premise was so way-out, particularly the way I aimed to present it in the book, that no one would regard it as non-fiction. Immediately after publication, I realised I was wrong. In fact, the amazing mountains of letters from virtually all parts of the world—including vast numbers of high intelligent people in positions of responsibility—convinced me that I had accidentally trespassed into a range of top-secret truths."

Watkins took up the challenge of writing a serious and completely non-fiction sequel, based on the documentary evidence supplied by many of his correspondents. However, the letters were lost in transit when Watkins left London to live in Sydney, Australia, and the book was never written. He has, however, written and lectured about the story behind Alternative 3 and revealed some of the quite bizarre responses he received to the book, including a call from the Earl of Clancarty, Brinsley Le Poer Trench (1911-1995), former editor of Flying Saucer Review and author of a number of books on the same subject, who said he was planning to raise the matter of Alternative 3 in the House of Lords.

Leslie Watkins now lives in New Zealand. A heavily edited version of Alternative 3 can be read here.

Available on DVD here.

TV Tie-ins: Danger Man

A fondly remembered spy thriller series, starring Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, a role which shot him to stardom and subsequently allowed him to pick and choose his next project – the baffling The Prisoner series. What differentiated Drake from other espionage agents was a very un-Bond aversion to guns and women; although they were often around in equal numbers, Drake never shot anyone nor openly flirted with his leading ladies. He was dedicated to his work as a troubleshooter for NATO’s secret service department which took him around the globe, first in a 39 episode black & white half-hour series (1960-62), and subsequently in 45 hour-long episodes (1964-66) and two episodes filmed in colour (1968). In the USA, the series was shown by CBS as Secret Agent.

Departure Deferred by W. Howard Baker. Consul 793, Apr 1965, 137pp, 3/6. Cover design by Ken Freeman.

Taking the identity of a dead agent who was hostile to British Intelligence John Drake is ordered to rescue—at all costs—a young woman sentenced to death by a Peking-orientated clique in Albania. It is an assignment that could shift the course of nuclear power and Drake has only 36 hours in which to see it through.

Storm Over Rockall by W. Howard Baker. Consul 794, Apr 1965, 142pp, 3/6. Cover design by Ken Freeman.

Radio Seatime was the latest addition to the pirate radio movement. It poured out endless programmes of popular music... and something else—instructions for widescale sabotage of Britain's atomic programme.
__So the call went out: "Send for John Drake" and in the events which followed he found himself pitted against one of the most dangerous groups of saboteurs that the nation had ever had to face.

Hell for Tomorrow by Peter Leslie. Consul 802, 1965, 176pp, 3/6. Cover design by Ken Freeman.

Behind the shooting of a teenager in Paris lies a sinister plan to flood Europe with cut-price drugs--but why doesn't the gang want to make any profit from the sales? And why are all its members British?
__Posing as a seedy peddler, secret agent John Drake follows the trail to the fabulous Cote d'Azur, where he discovers a conspiracy with as bizarre a plan to seize power as he has ever encountered.

The Exterminator by W. A. Ballinger. Consul 803, Jan 1966, 137pp, 3/6. Cover design by Ken Freeman.

The Exterminator was the official executioner for the 'other side'. And he carried out his work with deadly efficiency and despatch.
__John Drake's mission was to find him and destroy him. It was a mission that took Drake from the luxury yacht of an American millionaire to a bizarre Sicilian villa with a shark-filled private lagoon and, finally, to the steaming slopes of Mount Etna.

No Way Out by Wilfred McNeilly.Consul 804, 1966, 144pp, 3/6. Cover design by Ken Freeman.

There is only one end to the careers of men like John Drake—they die or are killed. There is no way out. That was the bitter lesson Tony Harris had to learn. He wanted out. and he thought he had found the perfect exit. He would be discharged dead. But there are flaws in every plan and the flaw in this one was to take John Drake to Macao. His mission: bring Harris back to the fold... or destroy him. And for Drake it was the bitterest task of his career; Tony Harris was his friend.

Amongst the first British TV novelisations, the Danger Man series was penned primarily by authors associated with the Sexton Blake series. W. Howard Baker had been the editor of the Sexton Blake Library between 1955 and 1963 and McNeilly one of his regular writers, often working together on books. W. A. Ballinger was a pen-name they shared, initially for books written by Baker but subsequently used by McNeilly. The only non-Blake author involved in the five-book Danger Man series was Peter Leslie.

Shortly before the first Danger Man novel appeared, Baker struck a deal with Fleetway Publications and Mayflower Books to revive Blake in a series of paperbacks and the two series ran concurrently until World Distributors brought the Consul Books paperback line to a close in 1966. The first title, Departure Deferred, also had a not-so-obvious Blake connection: it was a revised version of a ten-year-old Blake story, Dark Frontier by Arthur Maclean (George Mann).

The books were reprinted in America by Macfadden-Bartell, replacing the Danger Man title with the title it was given for American TV, Secret Agent. An earlier Secret Agent novel had appeared in America in 1962: Target for Tonight by Richard Telfair. In France the series was known as Destination Danger and following the reprinting of four volumes by Solar in 1967-68 a fifth volume appeared under the byline John Long.

Sabotage et Cafouillage [Storm Over Rockall] by W. Howard Baker. Solar, 1967.
L'exterminateur [The Exterminator] by W. A. Ballinger. Solar, 1967.
L'enger est pour Demain [Hell for Tomorrow] by Peter Leslie, 1968.
Mangances a Macao [No Way Out] by Wilfred McNeilly. Solar, 1968.
Chinoiseries en Albanie by John Long. Presses de la Cite, 1969.

Although often credited as an original novel, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that this is actually a reprinting of Departure Deferred, which has an Albanian setting. Some cover scans of the French novels (along with the American reprints) can be found here.

The Lost World part 15

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

E C Buley

Back in April I wrote a brief piece about Bernard Buley, who was a boys' story writer and editor. The piece mentioned in passing his father, Ernest Charles Buley who is the subject of this column, prompted by some correspondence with Tony Buley, one of E.C.'s grandsons.

Ernest Charles Buley was born in Ballarat, West Victoria, Australia on 4 July 1869, the son of James Buley, a builder, and his wife Susannah Eliza (née Crook), who were married in North Aylesford, Kent, in 1850 and emigrated to Australia in 1854 along with his wife, two eldest children, a sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law (and a few children). Most of the family lived in Ballarat, which was then a booming gold-mining town not unlike its Wild West contemporaries in the USA. James worked as a builder and is credited with being responsible for some of Ballarat's most important buildings.

Buley was the youngest of nine children and was educated at Grenville College, Ballarat, where his brother Arthur went on to become headmaster. The Australian Dictionary of Biography quotes Ernest's school friend Bernard O'Dowd as recalling him as "a brilliant wayward youth who took life lightly".

Buley passed his Civil Service Exam in January 1884 and moved to Melbourne in 1885 to become a junior assistant at the Public Library, museums and the National Gallery of Victoria before transferring to the Imperial service in July 1889 as a junior clerk in the local branch of the Royal Mint. He was promoted to senior clerk in 1895 at the Melbourne Mint, which proved to be his downfall.

Buley was keen on horse racing and contributed to 'The Quick and the Dead' column in H. H. Chapman's The Champion in 1895-97. Unfortunately he was an unsuccessful punter and on 26 April 1897 was arrested by Detective-sergeant Ward and Detective Macmanamny for stealing silver coins. One of Buley's tasks was to receive worn coins and gold bullion from the public and also to issue the latter and, after being charged with the theft of the silver coins, inquiries revealed that further irregularities had taken place. When he was brought to the City Court on 14 May, he was also charged with stealing 100 sovereigns.

Two days earlier, Buley had written a confession in which he admitted that on 30 March he had taken £125 of worn solver coins and, on 25 April, 100 sovereigns out of the bullion office stronghold, which he took to the Australian Deposit and Mortgage Bank and changed them into notes.

Buley, then earning £285 a year from his position with the Mint, had stolen the money to satisfy "debts of honour" which he had contracted through gambling on horse-racing. Buley was sentenced on two charges of larceny on 31 May; a plea for leniency was taken into consideration by Mr Justice Holroyd, who said that he would have been glad to accede to the request but for the fact that the prisoner (Buley) had been placed in an office of great trust and the offence was all the more serious because of the confidence placed in him.

Holroyd sentenced Buley to two years hard labour at Pentridge Gaol. The case was mentioned briefly at the House of Commons when the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the state of Victoria would not be asked to contribute anything towards the loss incurred due to the defalcations of Ernest Buley.

Released in September 1898, Buley did not have an easy time over the next eighteen months. He had married Emilie Olga Ernst, a teacher born in Eisenberg, Thuringia, East Germany, at West Melbourne Presbyterian Church on 11 September 1891 and had two children, James Marcus (b. 1894) and Olga Margerita (b. 1897), when he was jailed. A third child, Ernest Bernhardt (a.k.a. Bernard Buley), was born in 1899. According to Henry Champion,"he has starved since [his release]. But he really is a 'white man', in spite of this indiscretion and will make his way to London if he gets a chance".

The Buleys' first son, James, died in early 1900, the final straw of this dark period, and the family emigrated to London, arriving in April 1900. A daughter, Alma Mary, was born in 1901 and three more children were born over the next few years, two of whom survived infancy: Laurence Louis (b. 1903) and Theodora Vivien (b. 1908).

The family lived at 240 Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith, and, later, at 7 Burbage Road, Herne Hill. Buley quickly became a popular figure in Fleet Street, easily recognised by his pointed Mephistophelian beard and constantly worn bowler hat (which was indeed worn, by the elements and from being sat upon) to cover his bald head. He was sartorially inelegant, wearing what he pleased; for one important meeting it was obvious that he had been forced to purchase a new set of flannels and tweeds which he topped off with his usual battered bowler.

He became editor of the Weekly Dispatch where he was known as an editor who did not mind doing the difficult jobs himself; he once persuaded a circus band to let him join (playing the triangle) so he had the inside scoop on the visit of Hengler’s Circus to Buckingham Palace from which the press had been barred. The story was spiked by Lord Northcliffe who would not allow the wishes of Royalty to be flouted.

His first book was the well-received Australian Life in Town and Country, one of a number of volumes published by George Newnes about the social life and customs of "Our Asiatic neighbours". This was followed, in 1909, by two biographies aimed at boys and published by the Sunday School Union, The Hero of India: The Story of Lord Clive and Into the Polar Seas: The Story of Sir John Franklin. At the same time he was writing features and short stories for Reynolds's News, Sunday Dispatch, the British-Australasian and the Daily Mirror. He was also the chief sub-editor on Citizen, the Labour Party daily paper. This work was not enough to stop him going bankrupt in 1912.

In 1914, he wrote two books about Brazil followed by the anonymously-published (so as not to embarrass his German relatives) The Real Kaiser which was highly praised by The Times Literary Subject as "The best book on the Kaiser. While full of the most interesting detail, the tone is almost judicial". Buley wrote two anonymous follow-ups: The Dardanelles: Their Story and Their Significance in the Great War, which quickly went through three editions (the third expanded), and Ferdinand of Bulgaria: The Amazing Career of a Shoddy Czar.

Melrose also published Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War, for which Buley interviewed scores of Australians in hospital in London. It was another highly successful book, racing through four editions in 1915 (October, November, twice in December) and published in an enlarged 5th edition in January 1916, sales driven by the war in the Dardanelles—the strait that links the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Mamara and the Black Sea—and the Gallipoli peninsular. This was the first major battle involving the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and ended in the evacuation of all Allied soldiers in the winter of 1915/16. The following year, Hodder & Stoughton published Buley's A Child's History of Anzac.

After the Great War, Buley earned himself a reputation as "the new Nat Gould" for his racing novels published under his own byline and the pen-name Bat Masters. Buley "set a killing pace, producing as many as 35,000 words a week for weeks on end," says John Lack. He was also promoted by newspapers as an expert on the track and on betting, although he was never as successful a pundit as his books made out and he often had to dash off another story to pay his bookmaker. He ghosted at least one additional novel for the famous jockey Steve Donoghue which was originally serialised in The People, and also wrote a booklet entitled ‘How to Beat the Bookie’ which sold very well, much to Buley's amazement. With the royalties rolling in he approached his publisher, mystified because he had never seen a copy on a bookstall. "Of course not," replied the publisher. "We can’t print them fast enough for the 'bookies'. They’re ordering them by the thousand and posting them free gratis with their starting prices to all their clients."

As well as hacking out racing novels for Aldine, Buley also had some works serialised in newspapers, including "Calcutta's Luck", "Sea Urchin" and "False Face", the latter a thriller about kidnap, identity theft and plastic surgery set in New York and Paris.

Ernest Charles Buley died of cardiac failure at his home at 85 Park Road, Dulwich, on 10 April 1933 after a short illness, aged 63. His wife, Olga, had died in 1923 but he was survived by five children, most of whom also had careers in journalism: Bernard we have already covered; Alma Mary Buley, who married Frederick Elands Laagte Digby Cheek in 1929, was, like her brother, a writer of children's stories for the Amalgamated Press, active from the 1920s until the 1960s; Laurence became a newspaper journalist; and Theodora worked in the BBC newsroom where her colleagues spoke of Miss Buley with great affection.

Publications

Novels
The Flying Jockey. A story of racing and war. London, Mills & Boon, 1919. 

Golden Barb’s Victory. London, Mills & Boon, 1919.
Paddy Doran. London, Mills & Boon, 1919.
The Fool of Fortune. London, Mills & Boon, 1920.
The Luck of Mapledown. London, Mills & Boon, 1920.
The Rogue of Rugeley. London, Aldine, 1925.
The White Moth. London, Aldine, 1925.
False Face. Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1933.
Calcutta Luck. A racing mystery romance. Melbourne, Womans World, 195?.

Novels as Bat Masters
Won on the Turf. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 1), Nov 1922.
The "Live Wire" from Newmarket. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 2), Nov 1922.
Money for Nothing. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 3), Jan 1923.
A Dead Man’s Derby. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 4), Jan 1923.
An Ascot Mystery. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 5), May 1923.
Long Odds. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 9), Aug 1923.
A Derby Obsession. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 10), Aug 1923.
The Man from Down-Under. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 17), Mar 1924.
The Man who Couldn’t Lose. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 29), May 1925.
Riding to Win. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 32), May 1925.
Neck or Nothing. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 36), Jun 1925.
A Derby-Day Double. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 38), Aug 1925.
The Jubilee Plunger. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 42), Dec 1925.
Lady Luck’s Trophy. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 46), Apr 1926.
The Prince Wins. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 53), Nov 1926.
The Black Diamond. London, Aldine (Boxing Novels 24), Dec 1926.
Double or Quits. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 55), Jan 1927.
"Any Price, Blackmail!". London, Aldine (Racing Novels 57), Mar 1927.
Wonderful Wingadee. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 59), May 1927.
The Stolen Jockey. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 60), Jun 1927.
Three from Nelson. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 62), Aug 1927.
The Wild Hill Horse. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 64), Oct 1927; London, Modern Publishing, 1935.
The Jockey Twins. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 66), Dec 1927.
A Clocked Gallop. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 68), Feb 1928.
The Calcutta Sweep Mystery. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 70), Apr 1928.
In the Last Furlong. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 72), Jun 1928.
A Mystery Winner. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 74), Aug 1928; London, Modern Publishing, 1935.
The Snowstorm Derby. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 78), Dec 1928.
The Sweep Swindlers. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 81), Mar 1929.
A Derby Reckoning. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 83), May 1929.
The Bet of £20,000. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 85), Jul 1929.
A Tote Outsider. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 106), Apr 1931.

Novels as Steve Donoghue (ghosted)
The Luck of Gentle Grafter. London, Hutchinson & Co., 1927.

Collections as Bat Masters
The Ringmaster, and other stories. London, Aldine (Racing Novels 34), May 1925.

Non-Fiction
Australian Life in Town and Country. London, Newnes, 1905; New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905.
The Hero of India: The Story of Lord Clive. London, Sunday School Union, 1909.
Into the Polar Seas: The Story of Sir John Franklin. London, Sunday School Union, 1909.
North Brazil. Physical features, natural resources, means of communication, manufactures and industrial development. London, Sir I. Pitman & Sons, 1914; New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1919.
South Brazil. London, Sir I. Pitman & Sons, 1914; New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1914.
The Real Kaiser [published anonymously]. London, Andrew Melrose, 1914.
The Dardanelles: Their Story and Their Significance in the Great War [by the author of ‘The Real Kaiser’]. London, Andrew Melrose, 1915; 3rd ed. enlarged, Melrose, 1915.
Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the War. London, Andrew Melrose, 1915.
A Child’s History of Anzac. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1916.
Ferdinand of Bulgaria: The Amazing Career of a Shoddy Czar [by the author of ‘The Real Kaiser’]. London, Andrew Melrose, 1916.

Non-fiction as Bat Masters
How to Win at Racing. London, T. Werner Laurie, 1924.
How to Win on the Tote. London, W. Foulsham, 1929.

(* My thanks to Tony Buley for pointing me towards the Australian Dictionary of Biography biography written by John Lack, for supplying additional background information and the photo used above.)

The Lost World part 14

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

The Lost World part 13

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

DC Comics: The 75th Anniversary Poster Book

Celebrating 75 years of DC Comics in an original and entertaining fashion, Quirk Books have just published their oversized selection of 100 covers ranging from the classics—Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27—to the bizarre—Leave it to Binky anyone?—and touching base with many of the major characters and genres that DC have published over the years.

This isn't just a collection of superhero covers, although they do dominate the book. I guess when you're the publisher of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Justice League, etc., etc., etc., that's going to happen. It's the covers from slightly off the superhero trail that can be the most interesting: the first appearances of superheroes are iconic images that you're likely to have seen time and time again, but how about Mr. District Attorney or Heart Throbs which featured the kind of image that had Lichtenstein reaching for his tracing paper.

Printed chronologically, you do notice the sea change that occurred in the 1980s: Frank Miller's boldly executed Ronin and Dark Knight covers, Steve Bissette & John Totleben's lush, romantic Swamp Thing, the simplicity and power of Dave Gibbons' Watchmen smiley badge image. From there into the Vertigo era of Dave McKean, Brian Bolland and Glenn Fabry and up-to-date with the death of Batman, via Alex Ross, Dave Johnson and James Jean. The modern DC comic ranges from the photoreal of Alex Ross to the stylised pop art of Darwyn Cooke with plenty of variation in between, breathing new life into characters that are, as the title implies, upwards of 75 years old and have been depicted thousands of times on covers.

As well as reprinting the covers at a much larger size than their original appearance—about 36 x 28 cm (or 14 x 11 inches for anyone who hasn't converted to metric yet)—each page is perforated so you can strip out your favourites and they're ready to pin to your wall. But why would you want to spoil the book that way...?

DC Comics: The 75th Anniversary Poster Book with commentary by Robert Schnakenberg. Quirk Books ISBN 978-159474462-4, 18 August 2010.

Comic Cuts - 20 August 2010

Box Mountain as of Thursday, 19 August.

If you could see our lounge you'd think that there hadn't been any unpacking over the past couple of weeks at all. But I promise you that I've been emptying at least a couple of boxes a day. The problem with accumulating a collection of stuff is that it grows organically: I spent 15 years in the old house buying a book here and a comic there and somehow there was always the right book- or comic-shaped hole for it to live in.

Now we're faced with trying to decide where everything is going to live in the new house and condense 15 years of organic growth into a few weeks. Some of it is obvious: I need to get my reference books into the office where they're close to hand. But what about, say, the third edition of The Comic Book Price Guide? I don't want to get rid of it—I worked on it, after all—but I don't need it on a daily basis and the information it contains was thoroughly updated in later editions. So where do I put that book? On some other shelf out of the way but where it's still accessible? Bury it in a box in the attic, maybe?

Eventually I've got to go through this process with every single book in the house and it's not an easy decision to make. So I'll take my time and hopefully get it right so that when I need to find a book in the future I'll know exactly where it is.

I'm slowly and steadily catching up on e-mail, but you'll have to forgive me if you haven't heard back on a query that you've sent me directly. Some messages were irretrievably lost when we moved; some (132) we've managed to recover from the old server but I've yet to get them on the computer; and currently I have 369 messages marked unread. Most of these pre-date the move and contain bits of info. that I've not transferred elsewhere, but I'm still catching up on recent mail. I'm reasonably up-to-date on things I have to sort out immediately but with older messages I'm running about 10 days behind at the moment and maybe 15 days on messages that involve any sort of research. Have patience.

NEWS

R.I.P. Crikey!. A couple of years ago, Crikey! seemed to be doing pretty well. Launched by Brian Clarke back in 2007, it seemed to find the right, often lighthearted tone to promote the history and collecting of old British comics to an audience that thought of them as nostalgic relics of the past. No bad thing, although old fusspots like me complained that some of the features were little more than fluff and cried out for longer, more in-depth articles and interviews. I wasn't the audience. I was, on the other hand, a contributor on a couple of occasions and enjoyed working with Brian, Glenn and Tony.

From humble black & white beginnings, the magazine added colour and even managed to get high street distribution through Borders. Sadly, that proved to be their demise—Borders collapsed and Crikey! took a huge financial hit. Issue 16, due shortly, will be its last. Glenn made the announcement on the Crikey! website along with details of the contents of the final issue, which will include an interview with Mike McMahon and various features. At the website you can also order back issues and I'm sure a few extra sales would be appreciated.

Over at  the Frank Bellamy Checklist Blog, Norman Boyd has discovered a cover by Bellamy that's new to me. In 1965, he painted this cover for the Corgi edition of Richard Sale's Not Too Narrow... Not Too Deep, a story of a group of convicts trying to escape from a tropical island prison. Norman has subsequently tracked down the original artwork and a preliminary sketch for the cover.

BEAR ALLEY

With "The Lost World" coming to an end on Monday, next week I'm planning to run some cover galleries of TV tie-ins. It will be a bit of a random selection as the choice of what to scan depended on what came out of the boxes first but hopefully you'll like it... it might be a trip down memory lane for many of you. It certainly was for me!

And finally... today's random scan is... Monsters of the Movies by Denis Gifford. Published by Carousel Books (an imprint of Transworld, who also published Corgi Books) in 1977, this was a slim, 95-page paperback which featured an A-Z of movie monsters from Alligator People to Zombies. Denis, of course, loved horror movies—the old ones: Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and other classics from the 1930s. Most of the examples he puts in the book are from the 1920s and 1930s, with only a smattering from later decades. As this was aimed at children, I'm not sure if they would have shared his appreciation for the classics—Denis may have sneaked in to see The Invisible Man as a youngster, but we were sneaking into cinemas to see The Exorcist and the world of horror films was dominated by Hammer in my youth: Christopher Lee was Dracula, not Bela Lugosi.

Still, I couldn't resist picking it up when I saw a copy the other day.

The Lost World part 12

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

The Lost World part 11

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

The Lost World part 10

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Storm: The Collection

I'm very pleased to announce that the final three volumes of Storm—The Collection have now arrived back from the printers and are shipping to subscribers. The books mark the end of a seven-year project to publish the whole of the Storm saga drawn by Don Lawrence in English. Only a few volumes had been previously available in translation, a couple of tales appearing in Heavy Metal, and a handful in book form in the UK. Now, all 22 episodes, plus the 'prequel', Commander Grek, have been translated and published in deluxe hardcover. The artwork is the best reproduction I've seen, far superior to the original Dutch albums.

The story of my involvement in the series has been told before, so I needn't go into it again. All I'll say here is Phew! That's the second 12-book series I've worked on with the folks at Don Lawrence Collection—the other being the Trigan Empire volumes—and we've completed both of them. I'm amazed to think that, since 2004, I've worked on 31 books for DLC. The most traumatic was probably the Karl the Viking box set... in comparison the Storm books have been a breeze. I'm very proud to have been involved in their translation and, one day, I hope that we'll get around to the other Storm books. Don drew 22 volumes but the series has continued, with 3 more books so far, with a fourth currently being serialised in the Dutch monthly Eppo... and there was a 3-book spin-off series entitled 'The Chronicles of Meanwhile', which took place between the albums in the ongoing series. So that's another seven—and an eighth is already in the works. Let's hope DLC don't forget their English-speaking audience... we want more!

Storm The Collection Vol. 10, Aug 2010. Contains: The Return of the Red Prince, The Von Neumann Machine.

Storm The Collection Vol. 11, Aug 2010. Contains: The Genesis Formula, The Armageddon Traveller.

Storm The Collection Vol. 12, Aug 2010. Contains: Commander Grek, The Big Picture.

(* Storm © Don Lawrence Collection.)

The Lost World part 9

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)